Raiders of the Broken Planet

 PlayStation 4
Metascore
56

Mixed or average reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 9
  3. Negative: 3 out of 9
  1. GameCritics
    Jan 2, 2018
    45
    After having gone through as much of the content as I could without teammates, my take on Raiders of the Broken Planet is that it’s a great B-tier action title shoehorned into an episodic games-as-service model that absolutely does not fit. If it was a standard single-player or couch co-op effort, episodic or not, I’d have no problem recommending it to folks who don’t mind rough edges wrapped in style and character. However, I’ve got serious reservations that this project could have ever worked, and these concerns seem founded since no one’s playing. Broken Planet is a great property with a lot of potential, but it’s in desperate need of a structure that makes more sense.
  2. PlaySense
    Oct 10, 2017
    45
    There's potential here... which makes Raiders of the Broken Planet's failure all the more heartbreaking. The hardest pill to swallow? A close call between the lacklustre matchmaking, the game's unrelenting focus on grinding and the lack of clear instructions. Shame.
  3. Hardcore Gamer
    Oct 5, 2017
    30
    It’s rare to see a title with so much promise wasted. This is a game that needed some sort of oversight. Somebody needed to step up and explain that things were getting way out of hand with the currencies, that the mysterious appearing enemies style of challenge doesn’t fit with the mechanics as designed, that surprise instant death isn’t fun within the confines of a cover shooter. That didn’t happen. Instead of being pulled back from the precipice, MercurySteam merrily stepped over, embracing oblivion. The splatty mess that resulted was scraped up and released for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. The actual talent that went into this game dripped through the crack in this Broken Planet.

User Reviews

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User Score
5.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 26 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 26
  3. Negative: 13 out of 26
  1. Owb101
    Sep 25, 2017
    8
    Slick presentation and smooth game-play. Mercury Steams trademark visual design is always impressive. For now, the game is short on contentSlick presentation and smooth game-play. Mercury Steams trademark visual design is always impressive. For now, the game is short on content and employs a undesirable freemium monetisation scheme, which brings Raiders down a few notches from the start. but it has great potential.… Full Review »
  2. ErraticSeven
    May 5, 2018
    2
    I want to preface this review with a complimentary statement to the developers. Your character design is quite great and quite honestly theI want to preface this review with a complimentary statement to the developers. Your character design is quite great and quite honestly the number one reason I had interest in the game initially. With that out of the way, I have to say that while my initial first few hours of the game were mixed to positive, my experience quickly devolved into seething rage and noticing glaring flaws in the gameplay that utterly ruined my experience.

    Let me start with the core gameplay mechanics, shooting and melee. The shooting in this game is mediocre at best with various weapons feeling alright, and others feeling as though a wet newspaper would be more effective, while others still are leaps and bounds better than anything else offered. This frequently makes the game feel as though you are aiming through pudding, with sluggish and often inaccurate motions from your character that only get compounded on by poor network connections. Compounding onto this is the fact that the characters are designed very differently, with the fifth council making ranged combat almost a joke outside of a headshot from the resident sniper (shotguns and high power magnums being a choke even on headshot to them).

    As for the melee, the system is inherently broken and favors ganging up to the point that in some cases you will get locked out or murdered immediately upon action. For those unaware, the game uses a rock/paper/scissors system of melee, with punch beating grab, grab beating dodge, and dodge beating punch. Where this system falls apart is with host advantage causing punches to beat one another favoring the host, even after the host has already received one or more punches. This is compounded further when fighting two opponents, as if one punches and the other grabs, you will die without question because you can't simultaneously counter both.

    Moving on to map design and objective presentation, the maps are colorful and offer some level of verticality, but often lack depth beyond running in circles and awaiting the necessary action, to become available. The maps frequently feel like they were designed for 4v4 multiplayer gameplay in layout, with a co-op shooter placed atop them, causing numerous instances of locked out positioning due to AI running out in waves, or in the case of the antagonist, getting locked out of spawns because the Raiders know your spawn points. There are numerous times that I played where I felt that had they taken a few pointers from other successful co-op shooters, they might find themselves reworking the map designs and layout.

    Before I close out, I do want to discuss the game's monetization method. The developers have created what I consider a fair "try before you buy" method of selling their game, with access to every level being available to consumers without paying a single dollar. However, every level is only accessible for a large sum of in game currency and for a limited time. While this does sound bad for a free to play game, the designers have stated they are not intending Raiders as free to play, but instead free to try. So I do have to praise them for their up front statement on the subject. I also have to praise their decision to make each "campaign" only $10 at the time of writing this review.A fair cost for a game that is in development as each campaign is released.

    In closing, I can not recommend this game in it's current state. many weapons feel under-powered, with melee being a dice roll that can end in a single button press that hardly feels like a fair gamble if the ping of the match is even remotely high. The antagonist mode detracts from the co-op experience in my opinion as it is rarely a fair and balanced fight on the part of both sides and more frequently a steam roll for one side or the other, causing frustrations, rage quits, and matches ending before they truly began. I wish I could like Raiders of the Broken Planet more than I do, I truly do, but with the game in it's current state of design, I can not say that it is good.    … Full Review »
  3. Nobilis1984
    Oct 3, 2017
    3
    Well-intentioned, however, Badly made.

    Positively this is It is free and costs the campaign to only 10€. It was this already in the    Well-intentioned, however, Badly made.

    Positively this is It is free and costs the campaign to only 10€.
    It was this already in the positive of the play.
    There falls the bad automatic cover on them only irritates. This was able to do Gears better.
    Besides, the graphics are no thriller and the enemies are too strong in the middle degree of difficulty.
    What sees one here is not other like a bad pinched Gears of Destiny ****    … Full Review »
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